All of the above items are from the only 100% melanin operated online retailer who sells contemporary luxe slow fashion designs by local Indian designers. I featured @ikkiviofficial on @melaninass b/c I’m obsessed with their 30+ designers and love how they’re challenging the stigmas of India fashion while building local circularity!

As much as I love solid earth tone colors, I can not get away from being vibrant and colorful. Learning more and becoming increasingly connected to my ancestral roots, means that colors play a special part in my identity and livelihood. Mixing prints and solid makes me feel alive, sophistical, bold and ready to take on the world!

A basic tee-shirt should NOT be $50, $60 nor $70, and this is the first line that needs to be drawn in making sustainable fashion affordable and accessible. No matter your geography, style sensibility or ethnic background - a basic white (black or grey) tee shirt is more than likely a staple part of any wardrobe.

This is the perfect place to start your sustainable fashion journey when you’re ready and able to take that first step in purchasing something new.

Most people don’t know the basic lifestyle of a tee shirt. The material phase alone includes farming, irrigating, fertilizing, harvesting and ginning. Understanding the time it takes just to make a tee but also the waste that’s created when using conventional cotton will make buying that first sustainable tee extra special.

One brand we love has a mantra of “accessible-luxury”. Truth Alone Clothingis a basic tee brand specializing in Peruvian Organic Pima Cotton, as well as Peruvian Sourcing & Production. They work to keep everything as local as possible, from raw material to finished product, but their our photography, stylists, models, and locations are also Peruvian. “We believe in giving back to a culture that puts so much love into everything they do, and that’s the truth.”

Conventional dye are extremely toxic for the artisan, the consumer and the environment. Residuals from the textile manufacturing and dyeing process are of the most toxic industrial products that filter into our oceans. There's so much toxic runoff that goes into our water ways that ultimately cycles back to human consumption.

Using plants instead of synthetic dyes supports products that cycle right back to the earth. It literally eliminates a whole toxic process that completely changes the narration of fashion production.

Although there are levels to natural dye, much like anything else, walking in that direction is better than not. Let's support brands that are connected more to the earth and are healthy for your skin. We begin to create habits where we invest in more meaningful processes and start to create connections!